Climate Of Opinion Research Articles

Understanding the growth in the prison population in England and Wales

This study examines why the prison population in England and Wales has been rising steeply and progressively at a time when crime rates and court workloads have been falling. It concludes that while many factors are at work, the key drivers of the rise are sentencers’ increased readiness to pass custodial sentences, and when they do so, to pass longer sentences. The changes are a result of an increasingly punitive climate of opinion about crime and punishment, and inter-related changes to legislation, sentencing guidance and guideline judgments.

Spirals of Silence: The Dynamic Effects of Diversity on Organizational Voice*

ABSTRACT When will individuals speak up about organizational issues, and when will they remain silent? We suggest that organizational voice will be significantly influenced by individuals’ perceptions of the attitudes towards an issue within their workgroup. In particular, individuals will be more likely to speak up when they believe that their position is supported by others, and remain silent when they believe that it is not. We explain this using the ‘spiral of silence’ proposed by Noelle‐Neumann (1974, 1985, 1991) and widely used in public opinion research, which explains how majority opinions become dominant over time and minority opinions weakened.Spirals of silence within groups can restrict the open and honest discussion that is essential to organizational improvement. Noelle‐Neumann's spiral of silence emphasizes the horizontal pressures that the threat of isolation and corresponding fear of isolation exert to keep people from being open and honest about their opinions. We argue in this paper that the fear and threat of isolation are particularly powerful for members of invisible minorities such as gay and lesbian employees. We propose a second, vertical ‘spiral of silence’ may develop through processes at a more micro level within the workgroup and organization. This second spiral begins with the inability to fully express one's personal identity within the workgroup because of a negative climate of opinion towards a particular aspect of one's identity. This may be especially true for ‘invisible’ sources of diversity such as sexual orientation. Revealing a potentially disruptive identity might impair social cohesion: concealing it, however, can inhibit social exchange and task exchange and reduce self‐efficacy, leading to organizational silence. However, an alternate virtuous spiral can result in which individuals will feel empowered to express organizational voice.

National Conference on Dose Reduction in CT, with an Emphasis on Pediatric Patients

321 he clinical value of CT is unquestioned, and the uses of newer helical and multidetector units are growing. The dose received by some patients, particularly children, is higher than desired and must and can be reduced without any significant loss of diagnostic information. These were the conclusions of a 2-day symposium on the subject of CT dose conducted November 6–7, 2002, by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. CT dose reduction will require a combination of approaches, a series of speakers agreed. These include user education for physicians and radiologic technologists, development of technique charts by medical physicists, development of automatic exposure control devices by manufacturers, and possible retrofits of these devices for older machines. It also will require creation of a climate of opinion in which radiologists will demand attention to dose reduction in their purchase of new CT scanners, one industry participant commented. The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements conference was more a work in progress than a starting call to action, said the conference chairman, Fred A. Mettler, Jr., of the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. He observed that articles about excessive CT dose have multiplied in the radiologic literature and presentations on the subject have appeared on national society programs during the past year. The American College of Radiology (ACR) has announced a new CT facility accreditation program. “Our task is to define where we are on CT dose and to make recommendations on where we go from here.”

Education action zones: mission impossible?

Civic education teachers instruct in a field that is institutionally ill-defined and highly sensitive to the macro-political cultures of nations and the micro-political culture of schools within these nations. Teachers' performance greatly depends on both their professional qualifications and their perceptions of central social issues. The purpose of the study is to examine the professional background of upper-secondary civic education teachers in Israel, their perceptions concerning issues related to democracy in general and to existing rifts within Israeli society in particular, and their views on school climate. The study reveals differences between teachers in Arab and Hebrew religious and regular state schools on issues that are related to rifts within Israeli society. This, in turn, can create differential climates of opinion in schools that would nurture and perpetuate existing rifts.

ROSA DE SANTA MARÍA(1586-1617): GÉNESIS DE SU SANTIDAD Y PRIMERA HAGIOGRAFÍA

How did a young girl, almost unknows to the great majority of the inhabitants of Lima, who lived as a semi recluse, become a saint just after her death, venerated by hundreds who came to play homage and approach her body to obtain relics and the cure of disease? To answer these questions, this paper analyzes the role played by Luisa de Melgarejo, the circumstances surrounding the death of the girl, and the infleunce of the Dominican Order in generating a climate of opinion which made possible the start of the beatification process. An important element in this last, is the life of Rosa written by a member of that order a few days after her death, and which can which can be considered her first hagiography.

The Structure of Budget Demands in Denmark, Norway And Sweden

Data on people's attitudes to items on the public budgets are found in the International Social Science Programme (ISSP) Role of Government surveys and Danish national election surveys 1990–1998. These data are factor analysed to validate a three‐way agenda that postulates three main goals or functions of the state: the authoritarian state, the welfare state, and the humanitarian state. The factor solution is very similar in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the four largest European Union (EU) countries, and on many points consistent with theories of value change and new politics.Based on the factor analysis, the support for each of the three agendas is analysed for voters of different parties in the three Scandinavian party systems. We find that all three systems are structured in at least two dimensions, the welfare dimension and the humanitarian vs. authoritarian dimension. These data therefore point to the existence of a ‘new politics’ dimension that is similar in the three party systems insofar as it contains the same five budget items. However, the opinion climate differs somewhat between the three countries. The support for the humanitarian agenda is lowest in Norway, whereas the support for the authoritarian agenda is highest in Denmark.

Prediction, explanation and the epistemology of future studies

This article is a contribution to the development of the epistemological foundations of Futures Studies. The article starts by presenting the conventional “covering-law” model asserting the symmetry between prediction and explanation, a model that continues to undermine the authority of Futures Studies as a discipline despite the fact that Logical Positivism, the epistemological paradigm that inspired it, is no longer dominant. Then the article outlines the fatal weaknesses of that model showing how out of its criticism emerges the prospect of a coherent and robust epistemology of prediction. Two major points are made: First that predictive argumentation is not demonstrative but merely evidential. Therefore formal logic argumentative structures of the “covering law” type are inadequate in giving a complete and accurate account of predictive argumentation and practice. If the nature of predictive arguments is evidential then the epistemology of prediction should be based not on mere formal logic but on a larger theory of argumentation. Second, the criticism illuminates the complex problem of the types of knowledge and information used in predictive arguments to build up evidence. Explicit and formalized knowledge and statistical evidence are not enough for a successful predictive procedure. Background information and personal, local and tacit knowledge play a surprisingly major role in predictive arguments and procedures and that has very important epistemological consequences.

Ethical issues at the university-industry interface: a way forward?

This paper forms an introduction to this issue, the contents of which arose directly or indirectly from a conference in May 2001 on Corruption of scientific integrity?--The commercialisation of academic science. The introduction, in recent decades, of business culture and values into universities and research institutions is incompatible with the openness which scientific and all academic pursuit traditionally require. It has given rise to a web of problems over intellectual property and conflict of interest which has even led to corporate sponsors' suppressing unfavourable results of clinical trials, to the detriment of patients' health. Although there are those who see the norms of science developing to recognise the importance of instrumental science aiming at specific goals and of knowledge judged by its value in a context of application, none justifies the covert manipulation of results by vested interest. Public awareness of these problems is growing and creating a climate of opinion where they may be addressed. We suggest a way forward by the introduction of nationally and internationally-accepted guidelines for industrial collaboration which contain proper protections of the core purposes of universities and of the independence of their research. Some codes suggested for this purpose are discussed. We note that some universities are moving to adopt such codes of conduct, but argue the need for strong support from the government through its funding bodies.

A Whole Climate of Opinion: Auden's Influence on Bishop

A Whole Climate of Opinion: Auden's Influence on Bishop Get access Bonnie Costello Bonnie Costello Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Literary Imagination, Volume 5, Issue 1, Winter 2003, Pages 19–41, https://doi.org/10.1093/litimag/5.1.19 Published: 01 December 2003

Individual-level Predictors of Public Outspokenness: A Test of the Spiral of Silence Theory in Singapore

Individual-level Predictors of Public Outspokenness: A Test of the Spiral of Silence Theory in Singapore

RANK, MANNERS AND DISPLAY: THE GENTLEMANLY HOUSE, 1500–1750

In the early modern period the amenities of the upper-class house provided for approved modes of polite behaviour, while the initial, piecemeal display of antique ornament in the sixteenth century expressed the status and the education of the governing class. In the seventeenth century a more classically correct architecture would spread in a climate of opinion in which approved behaviour was increasingly internalised and external display less favoured. The revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was in superseding architectural languages that had lent themselves to the expression of status with a national style that did not.

The Listener: A Psychoanalyst Examines His Life

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book Forum: Life StoriesFull AccessThe Listener: A Psychoanalyst Examines His LifePAUL ROAZEN, PH.D., PAUL ROAZENSearch for more papers by this author, PH.D., Cambridge, Mass.Published Online:1 Nov 2002https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.159.11.1952AboutSectionsView EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Allen Wheelis was born in 1915 and has already authored a dozen books. The Listener is only the fourth one that I have read, and although it is beautifully written, I think it would be hard to imagine that any book might be more grim. Looking back over his long life, Wheelis still seems caught in the years of his early childhood. We are told once again, as in The Quest for Identity (1), how his father one summer made him cut the grass with a straight razor. And there is quite a bit about his mother, who lived to the age of 100 years. Getting that old does not make for a pretty picture, and Wheelis is unsparing in his description of the approach of death. Throughout The Listener one has the feel of an author who is able successfully to describe the lack of success. Despite occasional moments of reports of happiness, what came through to me was an almost overwhelmingly bleak account of the author’s coping with the apparent meaninglessness of existence.There is so much more I would like to ask him about. We learn almost nothing from this book about Wheelis’s professional training as both a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst. What exactly were conditions like when he trained? He surely had a training analysis, perhaps more than one such experience, and yet he fails to tell us anything about what he learned or failed to benefit by. How does psychiatry today strike someone who started out in such a different climate of opinion? Although The Quest for Identity showed an interest in theorizing, we get little about any abstractions in The Listener. Theoretical disappointments can be as moving as any other sort, but we are not let into what they might have amounted to.Wheelis quotes his second wife (to whom The Listener is dedicated) as complaining that he shuts her out, and that’s how I felt about this book. The life of a psychoanalyst has to involve loads of fascinating human stories, but Wheelis tells us about almost none of this. There is a reference to a first wife, and two of his three children go almost entirely undiscussed. There is nothing at all about any students he might have had. Wheelis consistently keeps circling back to his father and mother, with a bit about a sibling. Just as his professional life takes a backseat, so do his earlier books. It may be true that everything pales beside the poignant early years he recaptures for the reader, but a less self-involved writer might find that he had in his storehouse of memories plenty that would be fascinating to hear about. I think it would be unfortunate for Wheelis to end his career on such an unrelievedly somber note as The Listener maintains.By Allen Wheelis. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1999, 256 pp., $25.95.Reference1. Wheelis A: The Quest for Identity. New York, WW Norton, 1958Google Scholar FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 159Issue 11 November 2002Pages 1952-1952 Metrics History Published online 1 November 2002 Published in print 1 November 2002

How Research Can Assist Policy: The Case of Economic Reforms in Uganda

Research has had a powerful impact on policy in Uganda, affecting the climate of opinion, improving the quality of the policy debate, and helping focus public policy and intervention on poverty reduction. Uganda’s successful use of knowledge and research to help set public policy priorities demonstrates that even a poor post conflict country can, in a relatively short period of time, create an effective information base and feedback mechanisms for decision making.

Experimental implications for the Spiral of Silence

Tests of Noelle-Neumann’s Spiral of Silence theory have resulted in equivocal findings on many of the key assumptions on which the theory is built. Either qualified support or no support for this theory has been the case in much of the literature, often leaving its utility in question. The present study tests the core propositions of the Spiral of Silence theory in an experimental, fictitious “climate of opinion.” In manipulating the “climate of opinion” and in analyzing its influence upon several key variables, this study expands Noelle-Neumann’s concept of public opinion into a more robust theoretical construct to include macro, micro, and group level opinion and its influence on survey respondents. The results of the experiment produced mixed evidence on propositions about the direct influence of the climate of opinion upon respondents’ formation of opinions and perceptions of the climate of opinion and their peer group’s opinion. Limited support was also found for the proposition that the climate of opinion affects individuals’ willingness to express their opinion in public. However, no support was found for the theoretical claim that the climate of opinion affects individual’s perception of current or future trends of opinion.

Sympathy for the Devil?: Australian Unionism and Public Opinion

Public opinion on trade unions is influenced by a variety of factors, including direct experiences of industrial conflict, socialisation, the consonance of union behaviour with values and norms, and the general climate of debate, opinion and propaganda. Union sympathy (general support for unions) slowly declined between the 1940s and the 1960s, deteriorated sharply during the early 1970s, and recovered slowly under the Accord. The deterioration after the 1940s may be attributable to anti-communism's association with anti-unionism. The deterioration during the 1970s was associated with a significant rise in industrial conflict and the slow improvement in sympathy during the 1980s and 1990s was probably linked to the Accord-related fall in it. The decline in union density since the early 1980s cannot be directly attributed to a shift in union sympathy. Despite low levels of disputation in the late 1990s, however, union sympathy then appeared weaker than in the 1940s. Its low level in Australia, compared to other countries, may partly reflect the influence of anti-communism, but especially of arbitration, which rendered strikes illegitimate.

Climate of Opinion, Kuuki, and Democracy

This article deals with the “climate of opinion” not only among the general public but also within the mass media and government sectors. It discusses how the climate of opinions in different sectors influence each other and political decision making as a final outcome. Kuuki refers to a Japanese as well as a Chinese and Korean concept meaning a climate of opinion with strong political and social pressure requiring compliance. Many historical examples of kuuki pressures such as anti-Semitism, jingoism, anti-Communism, and antiwar movements are introduced and analyzed. The article also deals with how climate of opinions or kuuki within and across different sectors can be estimated quantitatively. It discusses the conditions under which kuuki emerges and functions politically. It sheds new light on the mechanisms of social and political pressures and decision making, especially on the macro or societal level.

Chapter 8: Climate of Opinion, Kuuki, and Democracy

Chapter 8: Climate of Opinion, Kuuki, and Democracy

The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre ed. by Deborah Payne Fisk

78 DOREEN ALVAREZ SAAR and MARY ANNE SCHOFIELD. Eighteenth-Century Anglo-American Women Novelists: A Critical Reference Guide. New York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1996. Pp. xxii ⫹ 664. $49.95. In the 1980s, Dale Spender’s Mothers of the Novel introduced ‘‘100 Good Women Writers Before Jane Austen.’’ In this annotated bibliography 35 women novelists of the eighteenth century aretreated by the editors and ten other contributors in their aim to make a comprehensive survey of twentieth-century scholarship. While it seems a shame not to include the hugely popular Agnes Maria Bennett, the interesting radical writer Eliza Fenwick, or the light-hearted Mary Hearne, the best-known writers are included and fascinating unknown ones added too. (The omission of Austen herself because she is thoroughly covered elsewhere is sensible .) A useful starting point for research, this critical reference guide is not comprehensive : a check of the entry for Frances Moore Brooke, for example, revealed no entry for Lois Whitney’s Primitivism and the Idea of Progress, which has an early and interesting discussion of Brooke’s relation to Rousseau, or for Robert Donald Spector’s English Literary Periodicals and the Climate of Opinion During the Seven Years’ War, which compares Brooke’s Old Maid to other periodicals of the time. A trip to the index in search of Spector proved irritating : three entries are listed (for different works), but none of them appeared on the pagesgiven. Ieventuallyfoundallthereferences to Spector a few pages on from the page numbers given, presumably indicating last-minute pagination changes. This turned out to be a frequent (but not consistent) frustrating occurrence. There could have been more coordination between contributors. Some of them use Philippe Séjourné’s huge work on women novelists; others list it as a work they have not been able to consult. Many of these novelists are of course significant in other fields, and contributors vary in how much notice they take of this: the Highfill, Kalmin, and Burnim Biographical Dictionary of Actors is consulted for some writers but not, oddly, for Inchbald, on whom it is very informative. The pleasure of having this reference guide for these novelists is tempered by the realization that the job could have been more thoroughly and carefully done. Jane Spencer University of Exeter The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre, ed. Deborah Payne Fisk. Cambridge: Cambridge, 2000. Pp. xxvii ⫹ 294. $65; $22 (paper). A short book, these fourteen essays by prominent Restoration scholars expand the canon and amplify its significance. Many of these chapters rely upon traditional studies rather than more fashionably theoretical sources, but Ms. Fisk’s scholarly interest in staging has obviously inculcated a compelling historicism that is evident throughout the book. The first two chapters are about performance . Edward A. Langhans recapitulates the development of the patent theaters and describes innovations in staging and scenery— elements of playhouse production that initially had a clear impact on the content of plays but are now accessible only by imaginative reconstruction . The second chapter is Joseph Roach’s rambling theory of Restoration stage culture as an ‘‘Enchanted Island,’’ closely allied to his study Cities of the Dead (1996) with its focus on memory 79 and forgetting in dramatic performance. This chapter deals with the relationship between theater and state, especially in terms of cultural and political restoration. Jean I. Marsden’s chapter investigating spectacle, horror, and pathos is equally about performance, for she examines the range of sensational effects serially adopted in public performance, from the introduction of stage machinery and its grandiose spectacle to the depiction of horror characteristic in the political turmoil of the late 1670s and early 1680s, and the portrayal of pathos, a stage effect that remained in vogue throughout the eighteenth century. Unaccountably, crucial performance phenomena have not received much play: for example, the emergence of paid actresses, the conventions of costume, and musical accompaniment to theatrical pieces. The next section shows how genre was acknowledged, metamorphosed, and marketed during this period. In ‘‘Adaptations and revivals,’’MichaelDobsonassesses the ramifications of a repertory highly dependent on altered plays. Revivals of old plays served to bridge the gap between pre-Commonwealth and post-Restoration worlds but simultaneously demonstrated the impossibility of this...

The Election Campaign: Political Actors, the Media and Voters

An electoral campaign is a complex process in which political actors interact with the mass media in order to orient the voting preferences and choices of the electorate. It is presumed but cannot be taken for granted that the election campaign is the period in which the use of propaganda and various forms of political communication is at its peak. In fact, the interaction between media and politics has long since become a structural given of contemporary democracies,1 and periods in which significant political communication campaigns are developed form part of a cycle that has become independent of electoral deadlines. It can even be hypothesised that election campaigns are becoming an 'internal moment' of these larger cycles during which the climate of opinion that is asserted compromises the election result, sometimes anticipating the election outcome by even several months. After catching on in the United States, this trend, called a 'permanent campaign' by some actors, is now also emerging in European Union countries.2 The question which is posed vis-a-vis this trend is twofold. First, in what way is a climate of opinion formed in the medium to long term, and what importance does it have for election campaigns? Can political actors intentionally 'control'

Poverty and Mental Health: the Work of the FOCUS on Mental Health Consortium

■ to help create a positive climate of opinion towards mental health and combat the fear and anxiety attached to mental illness ■ to stimulate communication and collaboration between groups working in mental health ■ to co-ordinate events involving member organisations which are beyond the organisational capacity of individual members of the group ■ to organise and advise on concrete initiatives, aimed at promoting and improving the image of mental health.